I was recently asked this question at a conference and liked it immediately. The question is about the near future, so it appears within the realm of predictability. However, the question is still about the future which is inherently unpredictable because it just hasn’t happened yet.
Adding my 2 cents on the near future of fashion, reposted from Bespoken:
The overarching theme of this decade will be debt, which will mean that fashion won’t likely have the kind of huge cultural weight it once had. There will be a certain public disinterest, or even a backlash, against it. Perhaps fast fashion will begin to lose some ground.
As for youth culture, I think this decade will be the post-irony decade. Young people, taking the lead from directional celebrities like Kanye and Gaga, the economic and cultural influences of East Asia, and coming to terms with the transparency and micro-fame culture of the internet, will be extroverted, expressive, and frank compared to the youth of the 90s and 00s. The corresponding youth tribe fashions will be OTT, which is exciting, and the candid attitude is fresh.
Strip away the formalities – people are more interested in people than they are in art, design, fashion, websites, and especially corporations. Some people are highly skilled at forming relationships through the internet – these people are worth hiring. Strip away the extraneous, whether it’s too much stuff, too much education, too much anything – this will be a lean decade, and the less liabilities and inventory you carry, the more intrepid and nimble you can be. Independence and freedom will become more and more about less and less.
